Hi all.
I am going through clicker training for the first time with my 12-month-old border collie. My previous dog was also a BC trained by me but I did not use clicker training. My current dog is a shelter rescue; I've had him since early January, and he is doing very well. It is my goal to do agility competition with him, but first we are working on basic obedience, manners and tricks. Currently he is doing very well in all three.
With the clicker, I have shaped a few behaviours out of him, such as bowing, rolling over, and covering his eyes with his paws. I have since added a name to the behaviours and he now does them on command. However, he also does them in his own free time or as a lure to get my attention. I will be working on the computer, look over at him and he will be lying on his dog bed with his face under his paws. This is definitely a learned behaviour, since it didn't start until after I shaped it with the clicker. I don't reward him at these times, because although I think it's cute, he can already do it on command and that was all I wanted. So my question is whether this is a normal process of clicker training. The thing is, I plan on doing a lot of tricks with him, and if he is going to be offering these random behaviours even after the trick learning is completed, it could start to look a little strange
The other question is what to do when the dog is offering two behaviours at the same time, and I am interested in both. For instance when he was trying to guess what I wanted in the covering-eyes-with-paws trick, he would sometimes fold one paw over the other while lying down, a sort of arms-crossed thing. Now I would like to have that for a trick too, but I thought it might be too confusing if I was rewarding that in addition to rewarding his paw movements over his eye.
My last question is ideas on how to get him to bark on command... when he doesn't bark normally. I hardly ever hear this dog bark; sometimes he will bark when he wants to go outside, but it's only ever one bark and then he's done. The other time he barks is when I leave ... and this isn't something I want to reward, and even if I did want to, it would be kind of difficult since of course I'm not even there to click and treat him.
I am going through clicker training for the first time with my 12-month-old border collie. My previous dog was also a BC trained by me but I did not use clicker training. My current dog is a shelter rescue; I've had him since early January, and he is doing very well. It is my goal to do agility competition with him, but first we are working on basic obedience, manners and tricks. Currently he is doing very well in all three.
With the clicker, I have shaped a few behaviours out of him, such as bowing, rolling over, and covering his eyes with his paws. I have since added a name to the behaviours and he now does them on command. However, he also does them in his own free time or as a lure to get my attention. I will be working on the computer, look over at him and he will be lying on his dog bed with his face under his paws. This is definitely a learned behaviour, since it didn't start until after I shaped it with the clicker. I don't reward him at these times, because although I think it's cute, he can already do it on command and that was all I wanted. So my question is whether this is a normal process of clicker training. The thing is, I plan on doing a lot of tricks with him, and if he is going to be offering these random behaviours even after the trick learning is completed, it could start to look a little strange
The other question is what to do when the dog is offering two behaviours at the same time, and I am interested in both. For instance when he was trying to guess what I wanted in the covering-eyes-with-paws trick, he would sometimes fold one paw over the other while lying down, a sort of arms-crossed thing. Now I would like to have that for a trick too, but I thought it might be too confusing if I was rewarding that in addition to rewarding his paw movements over his eye.
My last question is ideas on how to get him to bark on command... when he doesn't bark normally. I hardly ever hear this dog bark; sometimes he will bark when he wants to go outside, but it's only ever one bark and then he's done. The other time he barks is when I leave ... and this isn't something I want to reward, and even if I did want to, it would be kind of difficult since of course I'm not even there to click and treat him.